Are Concrete Kitchens the New Marble?

Concrete is the new marble. It’s a big claim that’s will no-doubt ruffle feathers in the décor dominion, but interior designer Jamie Blake stands by it.

Specialising in kitchen design, Blake worked as a bespoke cabinetry carpenter before studying interior design and founding his studio, Blakes London.His claim does have some basis. Last year Vogue Living featured a designer home in Sydney’s Annandale with extensive concrete surfaces, including floors and stairs. Likewise, this mid-century Melbourne house has elegant polished concrete underfoot.

Heck, this is a concrete bunker you’ll actually want to live in. All of these residences were featured in our pages over the past year, so Blake may well be on to something.He says that concrete is an ideal material for kitchen worktops if you don’t trust yourself to properly take care of an expensive marble slab. “Marble can stain and scratch,” he says. “However, new methods with concrete can create visual movement on a kitchen worktop that people normally associate with marble.

It can reveal subtle clues to how it was crafted and it has personality, as well as being tactile.” Not to mention, incredibly hardy.Blake admits that historically concrete has not been known for its refinement. Due to its strength and low cost, concrete was used extensively in brutalist Soviet architecture. It’s a building material that’s suffered from bad PR in western democracies, but Blake says new techniques are changing that.